FORCED OUT

Extreme Weather Displaced Seven Million People in First Half of 2019

New figures suggest that 2019 may be the most disastrous on record, and don’t include the thousands in the Bahamas affected by Hurricane Dorian.

This year’s weather is set to be one of the most disastrous on record after new figures showed that weather events displaced a record seven million people from their homes in the first six months of 2019. That’s more people than during the same period in any other year in history. The number comes from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, which compiled data from governments, the United Nations, and media reports. “In today’s changing climate, mass displacement triggered by extreme-weather events is becoming the norm,” the group said in its report. The New York Times reports the numbers show two main developments—that extreme-weather events are becoming even more extreme, and that governments are becoming better at preparing for them with evacuations. The numbers don’t include Hurricane Dorian’s devastation of the Bahamas.